The present invention relates to a support plate for the positioning of containers. Support plates of this kind are used for example in labelling machines in order to achieve positioning and rotation of the containers in this position. These support plates may, however, also be used in other areas, in particular in the beverage industry.
Some support plates are adapted to the respective particular shape of the containers, for example to a certain diameter of bottles or also to a certain geometrical shape of the bottles. In this case, when changing over to a different bottle type, also the entire support plates will have to be replaced.
Therefore there are also devices known from the prior art, which allow an adaptation to various bottle types.
A container alignment means is known from EB 0 547 300 B1. This container alignment means includes a carrier which in turn supports a plurality of vertically moveable pins. As a container is placed on the container alignment device, those pins are lowered down which are located directly underneath the container. The remaining pins, which are arranged around the container, are used for aligning the container. This device allows the container to be centred relatively accurately, however, it is relatively complex since each of the individual pins needs to be activated each by means of spring elements. In addition, any adaptation to bottle geometries deviating from the circular shape, for example to triangular bottle shapes, is possible only with restrictions.
DE 10 2004 054 091 A1 describes a bottle plate. This bottle plate comprises a bottle plate base portion and a bottle plate top portion removably secured to the bottle plate base portion. In this connection, the removability feature is in particular useful because it makes it possible to replace worn friction coverings of the bottle plate top portion. This bottle plate top will, during operation, be pressed against the bottom of the container.
A turntable centring device for items to be labelled is provided in DE 36 35 116 A1. Herein, a stationary support plate is disposed on a pedestal via support springs. A centring pin projects through the centre of this support plate, which is used for centring a container placed on top of the support plate. This device makes it possible to centre such containers which have a recess in the container bottom. This device does not, however, allow other containers to be centred. The pressure action on the container is exercised by the support plate.
A device for non-rotatably fixing a shaped bottle is known from DE 25 58 230. On this device a table is provided which includes an indentation for positively receiving the bottom portion of the bottle, with a spring-loaded ejector drift being disposed in this indentation. A conversion of this device to various geometric bottle shapes is not provided for. Apart from that, this device does not allow containers having cross sections deviating from the circular form to be centred.